Third birthday party

Yesterday we celebrated Izzy's third birthday (two days early). We originally thought about having a big party for her but decided to go with a small party and have it at our house to save money. Maybe we will do a big party for her next year when she might remember it. 

CP had ordered Madagascar-themed party supplies a few weeks ago...basically a week before Izzy watched Frozen for the first time and girlfriend became obsessed. Oh well.

I remembered to order the cake in time from a local grocery store but almost forgot to get balloons to put in Izzy's room before she woke up. She wanted blue balloons and I went to four different stores, ultimately finding nothing. So at 9:30pm Saturday night I went to a nearby grocery store and found a pack that had two blue balloons in it that also said Happy Birthday. It would have to be good enough.

Sunday morning I shoved the balloons in Izzy's room before she woke up. She was so surprised and excited when she woke up to see the balloons on her floor!

The house was clean in anticipation for the guests coming over in a few hours so we decided to go out to breakfast. Izzy got a free birthday pancake but mostly focused on eating the whip cream.

We ended up having four kids total (including Izzy). Her best friend at school couldn't make it but the manageable number of kids in the house was nice. The kids played pin the tail on the donkey before going into the sunroom to play with all of Izzy's toys. We ended up catering the lunch from a local Armenian restaurant, then eating cake, then heading outside to do a pinata. 

Izzy had a good time but never got a nap so by the end she was pretty tired. She bounced back later though wanting to play with a lot of her gifts. Wes was a trooper for most of the party but didn't really nap much so he was pretty exhausted by the time everyone left. He really enjoyed watching all of the kids play though.

Reuseable stickers from Grandma and Grandpa are a hit!

Tomorrow is Izzy's actual birthday and unfortunately CP is in Puerto Rico for work (he left early this morning). I don't think that we will do anything special other than bring popsicles into school so that she can enjoy them with her friends. I can't believe she is already THREE!

What a month

*November has been a doozy of a month, huh? Between my Cubbies winning the World Series after 108 years (AMAZING! YAY!) to the ridiculous election results (it's going to be really hard to put the words "President" and "Trump" together for the next few years), the beginning of the month was nuts and the craziness has yet to let up. Being a member of Pantsuit Nation on Facebook has been super helpful for my mental state to see all of the great posts from people across the country. I am definitely worried about what is to come in the next four years- to my job, to me as a woman, to friends that are minorities, etc. We'll see...but in the meantime I am heartened that people are standing up and hopefully continuing to take action against hate.

*I went to the Cubs world series parade (yes I was part of the 5 million people that went) and I wish that I had been closer to the street as it was hard to see much. However, I had to get back to work so I went to the closest spot that I could find and didn't realize that other spots along the parade route weren't going to be as crowded. Oh well.

The red circle in the middle? That's where I was standing. If I just could have gotten to the other side of the street....

*In other news, the house remodel is totally stressing me out. The company that we started to work with is telling us that after months of working with them on plans, picking out finishes, etc. that our remodel is going to cost about $50K more than we wanted to spend. We are totally frustrated because if this company thought that we would be way over budget then they should have told us months ago that the scope was looking a little too large. 

Since then we have expended more time and effort to reach out to a couple other companies to see what they would price for the remodel. One of them was a guy that I reached out to when we were thinking about redoing our basement before we realized it would be too expensive for what we would get in the end. He came back with a price that is just a few thousand over our max budget and pledged to look to find possibly more savings by getting creative with the drawings/what we have done so far. So I am feeling slightly better.

*Thanksgiving was good, but a long day. Here is my favorite picture of the day:

The only person who didn't eat anything on Thanksgiving is stuffed

*This Sunday is Izzy's third birthday party (her actual birthday is Tuesday). We thought about doing a big party somewhere but then realized that we didn't want to spend tons of money on a big party when she likely wouldn't remember it. So it will be a small party- my parents, my sister/her husband, family friends, and a family from daycare (her best friend from daycare sadly can't make it). Fingers crossed she has fun. She has been looking forward to this birthday for a while now.

*This week we signed Izzy up for winter activities to make sure she gets some running around time while it's cold out. We plan on getting her outside a lot on the weekends but it will be a bit harder with Wes as one of us will have to stay inside with him. On Saturdays she will be doing soccer with me and on Sundays she will be taking swimming lessons with CP. I think that it will be nice for her to have the one-on-one time with both of us on the weekend anyway.

I hope to write actual posts sometime soon, but frankly between work and home life has been crazy so these bullet posts are easier....

Microblog Mondays: snoring

I seriously need to get CP into a sleep study or maybe into a doctor that can prescribe a treatment for snoring. He just laughs and says that I should be able to sleep through his snoring, but most of the time he falls asleep first and his snoring is so loud that I can't fall asleep. A perfect example was last night- we both went to bed at the same time. He fell right asleep (how can men do that?) and started heavily snoring. Sometimes my go-to trick to stop him from snoring is to have him roll on his side but he was already there. I lay in bed getting angrier and angrier because I was so tired (which of course doesn't help me fall asleep)....so after a few minutes I headed downstairs to sleep on the couch. Wes woke me up at 1am (grrr) and I tried to go back into bed at 1:30 but once again, CP was snoring so I went back downstairs. It certainly didn't help that Wes woke me up AGAIN at 4am to eat (grrrr); I was able to get into bed around 4:20 and juuuuust fall asleep before my alarm woke me up at 5am.

This is not ideal. We have a comfortable couch but it is certainly not as comfortable as a bed. Not to mention that it would be nice to, you know, sleep next to my husband when he is actually here. Anyone know how you get your partner into a sleep study? Or have you worked with a doctor on a treatment such as a mouthguard that made a difference? I know that his snoring would lessen if he lost some weight but trying to figure out how to broach that subject without hurting any feelings would be tough.

Signed,

Someone who is seriously cranky from lack of sleep

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Four months old

Four months

Height- 26.5" (95%)

Weight- 18 lbs (91%)

Nicknames- Chunk, Baby Wes, Monkey

Diapers- Size 3

Milestones- Wes has become quite the talker and giggler! He loves to babble and smile and seems to do it on a dime (Izzy was a bit more reserved). He is not interested at all in rolling over but enjoys grabbing toys and putting them in his mouth. His hands are another favorite thing to stuff in his mouth.

Rockin' tummy time

Sleep- For the most part, Wes isn't sleeping through the night. He is sick though so I can't be upset if he wakes up with all kinds of snot in his nose or because he is coughing. This month he has been waking up once during the night to eat for about 10-15 minutes and then head back to sleep. If this is the worst of the four month regression I'll take it.

Clothes- Still in 6-9 mo clothes but some are getting tight!

Eating- Wes eats 3 5oz bottles every day at daycare. On the weekends and at night he is feeding on demand. He is definitely going through longer stretches of time without eating. I think because he is used to other people feeding him bottles he will now take a bottle from me if we are out and about. I have already dropped down to two pumps at work and so far I'm staying ahead of Wes' needs (this week I have also been sick and have been trying not to eat too many Halls because they mess with my supply).

Likes- Snuggling in our arms, nursing, walks in the stroller, activity bar, vibrating chair, baths, cooing at us and hearing us talk to him, watching his sister, when we make faces at him, watching sports on tv (when we watched the Cubs or football this past month he was dialed into the tv)

Dislikes- When we use the bulb syringe to suck snot out of his nose, not feeding him fast enough. He really is a happy, chill baby these days.

Illness- First daycare cold caught soon after starting school. His clogged tear duct thankfully went away earlier in the month.

Other firsts- First day at daycare and first daycare picture photo shoot. Watching the World Series and the Cubs win for the first time in 108 years!!

Watching the Cubs!

Wes' first Halloween!

Microblog Mondays: Almost over

Back in June I declared myself ready for the election to be over. It could have something to do with being in my third trimester and already not being able to deal with the negativity of the Trump campaign. Fast forward to today. I voted early- almost two weeks ago and it was an easy vote for me.* Hillary has the experience, the temperament, and will work on issues that I care about. Like Louie C.K. said recently on Conan, Hillary is a mom and moms get sh*t done (paraphrased).

I am looking forward to tomorrow so that hopefully Donald Trump and his laughingstock of failed businesses will fade into oblivion.

I plan on rocking a pantsuit to work tomorrow and with any luck, celebrating the amazing (and overdue) accomplishment of our first female President of the United States tomorrow night. A friend recently added me to the Facebook group "Pantsuit Nation" and with over 1,700,000 members and tons of inspiring stories about why people are voting for Hillary, I am energized and ready for her to win!

#nastywomenvote. #imwithher

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Almost Wordless Wednesday: Halloween

Leading up to Halloween Izzy was pretty excited. First things first, we made a Monster door with colored paper and ghosts to hang in our front yard (styrofoam heads, big button eyes, sticks for arms, and cheese cloth).

Izzy was pretty excited to pick out colorful buttons for the ghosts' eyes

Carving pumpkins went slightly better than last year. Izzy was more helpful in scooping out seeds, although she didn't like the slimy texture. 

Sorry for the bathroom picture but it is the only room in our house without light and it was sunny when we carved the pumpkins!

Finally it was the big day!

Ready to head out for candy

The last two years Halloween has either been snowing or freezing rain, so it was fantastic to finally have a nice night to trick or treat on Monday! I asked Izzy 5 different times what she wanted to be for Halloween and every time she answered it was "Superman." I even asked if she wanted to be Supergirl, but her answer was "No Mommy- Superman." Okay kiddo. I'm just excited that she didn't want to be a princess!

Meanwhile, Wes didn't have a say in his costume and Izzy's first Halloween costume wouldn't fit him, so he was a caterpillar. He wasn't a huge fan of the hat but was a good sport about being rolled around in the stroller.

Really Mom?

We walked around our neighborhood with a friend from Izzy's daycare and the kids did a pretty good job of saying "trick or treat" and "thank you"- sometimes with reminders, sometimes without reminders. Izzy had a good time running between houses and after getting candy would walk down the driveway and say "I want to go to the next house." Eventually, the kids got tuckered out from all of the running and excitement so we headed home.

Izzy with her stash

Overall, a successful Halloween. Now onto Thanksgiving and Izzy's birthday!